Christmas 2025

 Los Angeles, California

There was something about the coming year of 2020 that I liked and it gave me high hopes for the year. The number 2020 was so equal, so balanced. Plus it was one hundred years since my mom was born in 1920. I was feeling good about it as that year began. ...and we all know how that turned out.

2025 seemed like a good number as well. It represented a quarter of a century. We had made it that far since the millennium. It wasn't easy, but we had a pandemic behind us, the stock market was doing well, most of us were healthy. Ten days into it, I was driving down Ventura Boulevard, accompanied by the voice of my friend, Connie, on speaker. I was enroute to my friends' home in the Hollywood Hills. I had been evacuated from my own home, due to the Palisades fire.

Without a recap of the entire year, which I intend to do in a future post (maybe even my next), I'll just say: It wasn't easy. Between Joel and I there were the evacuations, a surgery, and a couple of debilitating injuries (one each). But the year wasn't a total loss. There was... The Dodgers! Anyway, all of this to come in another post. What this one is about is: Christmas.

After Tom died, Christmas was a huge challenge. Long-held traditions needed to be chucked, including the large tree we used to put up. I bought a small tree and began collecting new ornaments. Each year I put a photo ornament of Joel and me on the little tree, and an ornament from wherever we had traveled that year.

A new tradition is eating crab on Christmas Eve. And we have often roasted a duck on Christmas Day. We spend our time together, in the kitchen then watching some Christmas-themed film after dinner. That's a tradition I could not throw away, though I have new favorites along with the old ones. Remember the Night is one of the new ones.

We had spent Thanksgiving with Connie's family, and as we drove home, listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas, I had a different feeling about the impending holidays. In the past, Joel would occasionally comment that I got depressed every year at Christmas time, and I admit there have been some plain damn hard ones. But something felt lighter this year.

The next day I raced to get out the Christmas mugs and set up the little tree on the table by the wide doors in the corner of my den. My many Santas were placed on tables throughout the house. By the time Ana arrived to clean my house the following week, Christmas was alive and well in my home. Joel had brought a half-dozen poinsettias including two giant ones. This is an early Christmas present he arrives with each year at the beginning of the season. They lined the front porch and a fresh wreath went up on the door. The house was exploding with Christmas, and I was feeling the holiday spirit. And that continued throughout the month.

Connie invited us back for Christmas Day, so I baked a ginger pound cake with a brown sugar and creme fraiche glaze. I could have skipped the cake and just eaten the glaze, that's how good it is. Or maybe everything I was savoring seemed more intense, more sweet, more appreciated. It was simply the best Christmas I could remember in an incredibly long time. When I saw Cathy for my workout even she commented that I seemed to have broken my Christmas depression curse. 

And now the New Year is on its way and I have high hopes for it. I am making a French-Canadian Meat Pie for New Year's Eve, and Connie and Curt are coming to watch the ball drop on Times Square. That's the culmination of our celebration of the New Year. True, when that occurs it is only nine o'clock in Los Angeles, but it's close enough. And then 2026 will commence. A brand spanking new slate. Once, someone I used to know remarked that everyone should celebrate Rosh Hashannah as it gives you two fresh starts each year. I like that idea, but right now I am just focussed on 2026. Not a number I am particularly taken with, but what the heck. After ending the year on such a great, high note, I'm ready to charge into the new one. Somehow, I think it's going to be ok. Maybe even better than ok. Ready? Set. Go...

The Trio

Los Angeles, California

Losing a spouse after thirty-five years of marriage is fraught with painful memories. And I am that weirdo who has a perpetual calendar in my brain. When the roulette wheel of dates lands on a certain number, I can generally tell you something about that date. Maybe it's a long ago friend's birthday or some historical event. I think I got this from my dad. He had an excellent memory for history and often shared this knowledge at our family dinner table. Mom used to say that dad should have been a history professor, though his students might have struggled to stay awake during his long descriptions of historical events.

The bad thing about the date thing is that I remember every tragic occurrence in my life as the dates approach, as well as on the day. When you lose a spouse you get a memory trifecta: Their birthday; their death day. and your wedding anniversary. Tom's death day occurs a few weeks before Christmas, and my BFF Lynnette usually spends that day and night with me. But this year she could not, so I asked Cin if she could come and stay. Cin had recently reconnected with her ex-husband, Michael, and I asked her if the three of us could get together sometime. Michael lives out of state, so it was a little tricky to schedule. But it turned out that he was going to be in town at that time so we agreed to invite him to join us. And he accepted.

In the early days of our marriage, Cin and Michael were our closest friends. We did  almost everything together. They were a bit younger than us and unmarried when we first became friends. Cin was still a student at the university where I was on staff when we met and became friends. Just after Tom and I married, we invited them over to the off-campus apartment where we were living at the time. Michael brought pastries from Chinatown. When we purchased our first home the following year, they came on a Saturday to help us paint the walls. My mom dropped off sandwiches for us that day. And then, there were the two camping trips to Morro Bay. The first was a fun trip. On the second one, the guys drove up together during the day and Cin and I followed that evening after work. Upon arrival we discovered that they had brought almost nothing designated to make the trip, except for the case of Henry Weinhard beer. And they had worked their way through a great deal of it before we arrived. They forgot the camp stove (though I had placed it next to the case of beer). Tom even neglected to bring a toothbrush. Things went downhill from there. I was furious, and it was our last attempt at camping.

Within a few years, Cin and Michael married, then divorced. We started a business, then moved away from the little house near campus. They both remarried. Our marriage faltered. Then Tom died. It had been eleven years since that happened, and almost forty since those days of our close couples' friendship. And now Cin and Michael were coming to dinner. Cin and I were both a bit trepidacious about this event, but we needn't have been.

There is something uniquely sweet about reconnecting with old friends and remembering times shared. We talked and laughed a lot. We didn't talk much about Tom, and that was ok. I can talk about Tom, but my voice always goes wavery, broadcasting the emotion that will always reside just under the surface. My family always used to say they could tell how I was doing by my voice. So it wasn't a night of memorium; rather, just spending the time with old friends, which felt good. That night, the many years we had spent apart fell away. Afterwards, we vowed to stay in touch.

We were in our twenties when we first met. At that time, had anyone asked me what our lives would be like in the future, I would have gotten most of it wrong. I would have thought we would all still be married. We would have had kids. Michael would have been the one with his own business. Cin would be working in a corporate environment. I might still be at the university. Tom, who knows? I wouldn't have known at that time, but I should have been fervently wishing for him to find a good therapist and join AA. Harsh, I know. Hindsight is a bitch.

I hope we will see more of Michael. Then again, I reconnected with my college boyfriend a decade or so back, and that too was sweet, but unsustainable. Still, the value of old friends is immeasurable. And for spending time on an evening as difficult as that one always is, it was a gift.

Better Broken

 Los Angeles, California

Before I move on to report on the festivities of the Christmas season, I want to revisit the Sarah McLachlan concert and album. As I wrote in the last post, there are very few, if any, emotions I have experienced that haven't been expressed in the songs Sarah writes. For me, it's a lot like what Joni Mitchell meant to me in my twenties. All of my joy and angst were in her music. I still like to listen to Joni Mitchell, but she no longer speaks to me in the way Sarah's music does. I think that is  because Joni's music reminds me too much of that long ago time when there was perhaps more angst than joyousness. So in the last decades, Sarah's music has been much more present and resonant in my life.

As soon as I obtained the tickets for Sarah's Better Broken concert, I downloaded the album. When Cin asked me about it, I told her it was a little dark. When Sarah sang the title song, the first song she performed, she confessed that it had been written twelve years earlier. I surmise that was around the time that her marriage was ending. If you have had relationships in your life that ended, whether it be family or friend or husband/lover, you have most likely gone through a gauntlet of emotions. For me, most of what always ruminates is what did I do wrong? Or, what could I have done for a different outcome? And, in some of those lost relationships, there are answers to those questions. I could have asked for less. I could have tolerated more. Answers like that in multiplication. But the truth is that some relationships are better broken.

A friend has recently lost her husband, and I have been making an effort to support her. It brings back a  lot of memories for me, back to the time when my husband passed away. I shared with her the wisdom that another friend had shared with me at the time: Some of the people you expect to be there disappoint you. But others who you don't expect much from, will come through in extraordinary ways. This was so true. My best friend at the time almost immediately backed away from me and that greatly added to the grief I was experiencing. What did I do wrong? Maybe I leaned on her too  much. Among other things, I asked her to notify people of his death for me. Things a sister would have done, had I had one. Could I have tolerated more? Probably. After she stepped back, I did the same, thinking she would address the changes in our relationship. She didn't. By the time I did, the issues were largely unmendable. I had thought that the history we had including the very special times we spent together in Carmel would be sustaining. So, the next time I was in Carmel, I sent her an email catching up on my life and the changes in Carmel. She never responded.

If I were to look back through all the posts here over the past fifteen-plus years, I would find a litany of assertions that I expect a lot from my relationships. And equally stated, that I give a lot in my relationships. This dynamic came up a lot when I was in therapy. I am reminded that the late, great Rob Reiner once stated (and I paraphrase) that he went into therapy with depression and came out a few decades later with the understanding and acceptance that sometimes he was going to be depressed. Through all of the growth in my adult life (and for better or for worse), I am that person who values and cherishes my relationships. But when the teeter-totter stops going up because one side isn't leveraging their share, I do address that. And, usually too late. One of the lessons I learned long ago is that if you address this with your friend, lover, family member, you better be prepared that if the situation has been working for them, they are not going to meet that moment with understanding and empathy. In fact, most of the time it is exit, stage right. I have grieved in my life for the loss of a few friends, a sister, and my college boyfriend ex. But I have also come to an understanding that this is who I am. And, sad as I feel for those losses, I am cognizant that some people simply do not have the capability to be a good friend. Most of them want friendship and even lament that they don't make friends easily. But the truth is, you don't make friends. You be a friend. You make yourself available, offer creative ways to spend time together, and most importantly provide an ear and shoulder whenever needed. It's a trifecta and you have to hit it all. If you don't have that capability, to put yourself out there as that special friend, you will never have strong friendships. Knowing this, as much as I have always strived to be a that friend and sister, I have learned that some relationships truly are better broken. 

There are worse things in life than feeling like you're not getting enough from a relationship. But it doesn't feel good and those feelings always increase over time. Having an assurance that some things are better broken also allows me to give more and to be more to the longtime friends who put similar caring and energy into their relationships. And we value each other more or less equally. Those are the friendships that can be forever unbroken. And that brings rewards beyond words.